


what i cannot escape is my memories

by kimaracretak



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 10:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3378200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four years, three months, two weeks, and four days Hermione Granger looks at a smudged patched ball of emotions and memories and regrets and moments of light held together with spellotape and wonders what she ought to do with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what i cannot escape is my memories

**Author's Note:**

> for a livejournal prompt _hermione granger, post-war, i'm not lost, just wandering_ a very long time ago

War took her soul. She says this, after, but doesn't think it's quite right. If it had, she would have adjusted. The hole left behind by terror would have become gradually filled in the rebuilding of the material world. So maybe this, maybe: war ripped her soul apart and left it hanging in tatters.

It takes Hermione Granger three months, two weeks, and four days after the war ends to fully process this. Three months, two weeks, and four days after four years of watching each witnessed death and each spoken curse scream through her (child’s soul, adult’s soul, everything-in-between soul) and each touch of Harry or Ron or Ginny’s hand twine whispering around the fragments to bring them back together. After four years, three months, two weeks, and four days she looks at a smudged patched ball of emotions and memories and regrets and moments of light held together with spellotape and wonders what she ought to do with it.

After the war, she used to think, she’d learn how to live again. But now, now, now that Voldemort is dead and the Death Eaters are hiding or dead and her parents are back and she can barely step foot outside her house without being accosted by reporters, she knows better. She's alive, and sometimes wonders if that’s really for the best. She's not living, and sometimes wonders if that’s really so bad.

She’s forgotten how to stop running. Forgotten how young they all (still) are. Forgotten that she has a life ahead of her. Forgotten that she used to laugh. Forgotten, while the majority of the world stood against Voldemort, just how fucked up this whole insular system of _House separation_ and _Muggle-Wizard separation_ and _this is good and this is evil_ is. Forgotten everything except how much she wants to just _be Hermione_.

She’s never been allowed to just _be Hermione._ Never allowed to be the Gryffindor who loved the beauty of knowledge, the witch who had Muggles for parents and _learned to be_ _bloody well proud of it, thank you very much,_ never allowed to have blurred moral lines. Funny, she thinks with no small amount of bitterness, maybe she has the war to thank for something, in some horrible way. Or maybe she doesn’t, because now that she knows who she is she’s being forced to be someone else. No one understand how messed up she really is, how now that everything is over she wants to recapture some of that childhood that she never had. But she’s seen too much, they all have, and she can never go back. She can never be innocent again, she can never be a child.

So she leaves. Leaves England, leaves her parents, leaves Ron and Harry and Ginny and everyone else. Says _please oh please, don’t worry about me, I just need to go somewhere where there aren’t so many memories_ _, I’ll be fine, I promise Mrs. Weasley, I love you all, I really do, I can’t stay here anymore, I’ll come back, I promise._ Turns down the offers that Harry and Ron make to come with her. Packs a bag and goes to Ireland.

She’s happy there. The war didn’t cross the sea, and Irish magic has a softer tinge than English magic – it’s quieter, settled and grounded and comfortable in its consistency; English magic is a bit wilder, a bit newer. She meets a lovely young wizard in a pub in Connemara who introduces her to his friends who practice a fascinating type of Druidic magic. She explores with them a bit, trading stories and knowledge, and then branches out on her own. She’s happy, most of the time. Sometimes in the middle of the night, brief thought will intrude: _I wish Harry were here._ Sometimes, she’ll be reminded of the days they spent in the tent together, days of _maybe we should stay here and grow old._ Sometimes, she’ll think that if she and Harry could make a home here in this green, windswept country, she would be happy.

“Are you lost, dearie?” a kindly-faced old woman asks her in Donegal. She looks up, flustered, from the Irish words she was trying to decipher on the map she had picked up. “Yes, yes I suppose I am, a little bit,” she stammers. The woman directs her to the B&B she was looking for. There’s a beach there, and Hermione digs her toes into the sand and lets her thoughts wash over her. Eventually, inevitably, the memories become crushing. She leaves again.

Jordan is a strange place. There are so many sights and sounds and colors that it’s almost unbearably overwhelming at first. While the government may be knee deep in conflict _(Muggle conflict. Muggle wars. The kind we never learned about, were taught not to care about.)_ the people in the streets are a study in conflict resolution. It is here that she sees magic being used for the first time to truly help people. Not used for amusement, not used for destruction, even the destruction of evil, but truly used to make life better. Like the time she passes by a water fountain in a public park and clearly hears the woman next to her whispering a water-purifying charm. Like the time she glimpses a medical technician treating a car crash victim slip one of the ingredients for a healing potion into a salve he’s preparing for the burned girl. In Jordan, she learns that she can stop running.

“Are you lost, ma’am?” a grubby-faced young boy asks her in Ammam. And while it’s true that she really does have no idea how to get to the restaurant she was planning on going to for dinner, something in the question speaks to her on a different level. “No, not all,” she smiles. And for the first time, she thinks, it’s actually true.

When she returns to England, the first person she looks for is Harry. When she finds him, she wraps him up in a desperate hug and doesn’t say anything for a long, long time. Later, over butterbears in the Three Broomsticks, she says, “I’m sorry I left.” He covers her hand with his own, lacing their fingers together. “I know why you left,” he smiles softly. “I’m glad you’re home, Hermione.”

Home. It sounds nice. Safe, for once. After four years, nine months, three weeks, and six days, home doesn't sound like a lie anymore.

 


End file.
